About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Monday, August 6, 2012

Links for the past two weeks

Links for the past days:
The military is Egypt is not just an army, it is a Moloch with many important industrial assets. It is also deeply embedded in civil society in Egypt, as high ranking officers can be sure of getting an important new job when retiring from the army. Egyptian journalist Sarah Sirgany wrote about a recent project that maps themultifacetedmilitary involvement in all fields in Egypt.

The blog Jadaliyya published the International Crisis Group's assessment of how with time the parties in the Syrian conflict have mutated and taken on a different shape. Even the government mutated from an authority into just a repressive apparatus and a party in the conflict.

It has been said before, more than once in fact, but it seems to impress no one. Nadia Hijab in the Middle East Channel of Foreign Policy once again puts the facts together ad asks the question who in fact profits from international aid to the Palestinians. Not the Palestinians themselves, that is for sure. Which does not stop the EU, for instance, to again donate millions to a repressive security force. Rethinking Aid to the Palestinians.

The European Union on 27 July strengthened its relations with Israel in 60 areas. Amnesty International, however, criticized the EU for not putting human rights at the center of its relations with Israel and not living up to its own standards.

Amnesty also demanded that an investigation by the Free Syria Army into the death of 14 members of the 'Berry clan' in Aleppo who were supposedly pro-Assad and were murdered by the opposition, will be carried out in an impartial and comprehensive way and should be referred to the UN-Commission of Inquiry on Syria.